A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can’t give you a formula for that.

Once you become predictable, no one’s interested anymore.

Everything I’ve ever done was out of fear of being mediocre.

Years from now, after I’m gone, someone will listen to what I’ve done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they’ll hear my guitars speaking for me.

You shape your own destiny.

If you hear something you like, and you’re halfway like the public, chances are they’ll like it too.

Do it again on the next verse, and people think you meant it.

I’ll always be poor in my mind.

There is a long history in country music of songs celebrating drinking and lamenting drinking. Country songs for the most part have always been heavily rooted in reality. The first artists were the people next...